View attachment 224554 View attachment 224553 View attachment 224552 View attachment 224551 Hi everyone,
This is going to be a long story, but basically I need help trying to workout what is wrong with my tortoise. I have been to the vets but everything they have suggested doesn't seem to be making any difference.
BACKGROUND INFO:
I have a 3 year old Hermanns tortoise, she lives inside in a tortoise table full of a mixture of coco noir and orchid bark. It has a mercury vapour lamp that is around 35 degree in the basking spot and goes down around 20 in the cooler areas. She has access to fresh water and is bathed every day (NOTE: she never drinks in the bath, and I have probably only seen her drink twice ever). Her diet is of leafy greens and commercial pellets I buy from the grocery store but I am now changing to home grown weeds from seeds I purchased from shelled warriors, and mazuri pellets. I fear this diet has done bad for her however I have a 10 year old tortoise who is perfectly healthy and has been fed the same his whole life. He has had check up at the vet and there is no doubt he is unhealthy and shows no signs of pyramiding etc.
BEHAVIOUR:
She has never been one to run around much ever since I got her. She never spent a lot of time under her heat lamp but did used to come out every know and then to warm up and eat. Lately, in the past couple of months, she will never, ever, wake up and get her self out of her hide to warm up, I have to pull her out every day and make sure she warms up. I even have a temperature gun so I ensure she gets to atlas 25 degrees every day before I let her go and hide again. She will eat very small amounts but only if I hand feed her it and won't seek out food herself.
THE PROBLEM:
YELLOW URINE. She has had blood tests at the vet and an X-ray. The blood tests show that she is anaemic and high very high levels of uric acid. The X-ray was all clear for kidney/bladder stones but did show calcium deficiency. During this 2 week period I spent going back and forward to the vet she did not eat a thing and was being force fed by the vets. She has improved in the way she is eating a small amount. Her shell does show pyramiding and her eyes look slightly sunken to me (but she is getting 10ml of water a day + the food she eats-she is 400g, as the vet advised). She also rubs her eyes sometimes and occasionally the third eyelid that appears in the corner can start to cover her eye? No idea if this is related.
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For the past 4 weeks I have been syringe feeding her twice a day, calcium and D3 liquid with water, and arkvits (contains iron and loads of other nutrients/vitamins) with water. This is keeping her hydrated and she is urinating most days but it is still yellow. The usual white patch in the liquid is yellow and the liquid part is also yellow. The vets have said the only other thing they can do is do a biopsy on her kidney however because of her size (she's only 400g) and her overall health it is very risky and has a high chance of not working or putting her to sleep for ever.
I have no idea what else to do? I think I am doing the right thing with all the vitamins and baths etc and changing her food but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Is this something that takes ages to fix? or should I of seen a bigger improvement by now? I mean right now she is sitting in the bath and going crazy because she hates it and stamping around, but in her cage she just does nothing.
I find it hard to believe it is my husbandry when I have another perfect healthy tortoise raised in the same fashion.
This is going to be a long story, but basically I need help trying to workout what is wrong with my tortoise. I have been to the vets but everything they have suggested doesn't seem to be making any difference.
BACKGROUND INFO:
I have a 3 year old Hermanns tortoise, she lives inside in a tortoise table full of a mixture of coco noir and orchid bark. It has a mercury vapour lamp that is around 35 degree in the basking spot and goes down around 20 in the cooler areas. She has access to fresh water and is bathed every day (NOTE: she never drinks in the bath, and I have probably only seen her drink twice ever). Her diet is of leafy greens and commercial pellets I buy from the grocery store but I am now changing to home grown weeds from seeds I purchased from shelled warriors, and mazuri pellets. I fear this diet has done bad for her however I have a 10 year old tortoise who is perfectly healthy and has been fed the same his whole life. He has had check up at the vet and there is no doubt he is unhealthy and shows no signs of pyramiding etc.
BEHAVIOUR:
She has never been one to run around much ever since I got her. She never spent a lot of time under her heat lamp but did used to come out every know and then to warm up and eat. Lately, in the past couple of months, she will never, ever, wake up and get her self out of her hide to warm up, I have to pull her out every day and make sure she warms up. I even have a temperature gun so I ensure she gets to atlas 25 degrees every day before I let her go and hide again. She will eat very small amounts but only if I hand feed her it and won't seek out food herself.
THE PROBLEM:
YELLOW URINE. She has had blood tests at the vet and an X-ray. The blood tests show that she is anaemic and high very high levels of uric acid. The X-ray was all clear for kidney/bladder stones but did show calcium deficiency. During this 2 week period I spent going back and forward to the vet she did not eat a thing and was being force fed by the vets. She has improved in the way she is eating a small amount. Her shell does show pyramiding and her eyes look slightly sunken to me (but she is getting 10ml of water a day + the food she eats-she is 400g, as the vet advised). She also rubs her eyes sometimes and occasionally the third eyelid that appears in the corner can start to cover her eye? No idea if this is related.
View attachment 224553View attachment 224552 View attachment 224551View attachment 224554
For the past 4 weeks I have been syringe feeding her twice a day, calcium and D3 liquid with water, and arkvits (contains iron and loads of other nutrients/vitamins) with water. This is keeping her hydrated and she is urinating most days but it is still yellow. The usual white patch in the liquid is yellow and the liquid part is also yellow. The vets have said the only other thing they can do is do a biopsy on her kidney however because of her size (she's only 400g) and her overall health it is very risky and has a high chance of not working or putting her to sleep for ever.
I have no idea what else to do? I think I am doing the right thing with all the vitamins and baths etc and changing her food but it doesn't seem to make any difference. Is this something that takes ages to fix? or should I of seen a bigger improvement by now? I mean right now she is sitting in the bath and going crazy because she hates it and stamping around, but in her cage she just does nothing.
I find it hard to believe it is my husbandry when I have another perfect healthy tortoise raised in the same fashion.
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I sometimes feel she is sad (if tortoise can have that emotion) however somedays she seems ok.
